State Capital Field Trip and Mean Mom Story...

One of the few things I get to do as a working mother is find the time to go on field trips with the boy and his class. This was one part of a two part trip that was taken about 3 months ago, I just have not had anytime to blog about it. The boy loves learning about history and politics but our non-religious side came out as we were pulling up to the state capital, "mom, that's the temple." It took the remainder of the time explaining to him the difference between a temple and a capital building.

Our first stop was to the knock off Liberty Bell, yes it has the crack and all. They allowed the children to touch and "ring" the bell, the ring is in quotes because they rang it by just hitting it with their hands, with close to 30 children it made some noise.

Then we made our way to the representative room, they took us to the upstairs and sat us in seats. The old woman who was our guide, bless her heart, wanted only questions about the room itself because she could answer those, but the kids were not interested in that at all they wanted to ask about the rules and laws. The actually thought this was the court itself but we finally got them to understand this is where they make the laws.

This room is much smaller than I expected, when you see it on the tv it does look so much larger.

Then there was the "gold" room, I really didn't get to hear much about this room because one little, young man decided to throw some attitude (ratatouille style) and got pulled out into the hall. We spent the remainder of the time fighting with each other.

But the view was great!

We got a class picture on the stairs, can you find H?

There he is with a mean smile because he and his mom were fighting.

I am just reminded of our parent-teacher conference though and H had to write a story about what has been bothering him, his was not of the weather or peer pressure or anything as interesting as that, no his was about his mean mother. What has been bothering him is I have taken away video games from him for a very long time because he has not earned them back yet, he has not liked this very much. So he said how this bothers him that I have grounded him but at the very end he let me know that he knows that I still love him even if he is grounded for it. What more could a mother ask?

Fun Friday, okay so it's Monday...

This year in school they get to have Fun Friday's, as long as they don't have more than 4 punches (demerits) and they are caught up on their school work. This includes any number of things, last Friday they were supposed to walk to the CommonCents store to get Icees. Well not enough parents had volunteered to help out but it was also quite cold so Mrs. G ended up postponing it until Monday. I had planned on showing up on Friday but had completely forgotten so I made the effort to make sure I was there today because really come on this is totally cool in kid land.

I love to help out with his classes when I can, I don't get to do as much as I want because I have some serious deadlines at work but when I can make it work out I try as much as I can because when I show up to class for him H treats me completely different and even though I know he loves me I know he really shows it while I am there to help out. I am not sure if it is boasting that he has a parent to come in to help or what but it makes me a proud mother on one cute and adoring little boy when I am there.

When I showed up I was talking to the teacher and she had made mention that CommonsCents were not going to donate the Icees this year but she had gone in and begged them to reconsider, so an extra special thanks to Mrs. G and to CommonCents for making this happen especially with many companies making many cutbacks for such things. The kids LOVED this, they had so much fun.

The three boys in the middle are the terrible three as I call them now. Garrett, Hunter and Travis. Garrett has been friends with Hunter for years now, they have gone to the same day care and school since before kindergarten. Travis is a new friend of Hunter's who has just moved into our complex, he is a pretty good kid. Hunter makes friends so easy and many of them call him his best friend, but between Travis and Garrett I totally am sensing some strong competition for Hunter's attention, but he does a good job of mellowing them out in the end so it makes me proud of him.